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Friday, April 10, 2009

The Brick from Hell

"Real Life" is the enemy of a triathlete. The multisport lifestyle means that in your 7 days a week you have to squeeze in 3 swims, 3 runs, 3 bike rides, and 2 days in the weight room. Oh yeah, and then you need a rest day.

This week was especially hard because I had to take Tuesday night off for Illinois Marathon volunteer training, and I have a family thing this Sunday (Easter).

I rearranged my training today to fit in both a bike/run brick and a swim. Today was an endurance event in itself. I swam 1000m this morning, got the the LBS to get some new tights for tomorrow, worked on my bike, and then went out for the Bike/Run brick.

By the time I got to the brick, the weather was terrible! Luckily the rain we had had stopped, but I was left with a wind chill of 31 degrees and 35Mph winds. It was the worst wind I've ever ridden in. There is a large hill in front of my house that I typically descend at 25Mph. Today that descent happened, directly into the wind, at 9Mph. I went back up that same hill at 18Mph. At any rate,after having only gone about 3 Miles in 15 minutes I transitioned to my run and ran a mile. My legs felt like lead for the first 1/4 mile, which was the point of course. The cold made the pain that much worse.

After that mile I made it back to my bike, ate a gu (my afternoon snack...), drank, and rode another 20 minutes. By the time I was transitioning to the run again I was really hurting. The wind was just destroying me on the bike. The entire time I was thinking "I hope I don't have race day winds like this." I was frozen, hurting, my legs were hardly working after the second transition, and I was running again. One and a half miles later I was back at the house, frozen, wind burned, and in a daze. I was supposed to do the bike/run circuit 3 times, but there was no way I could do that today.

I hope I'll be ready for those distances on race day, and I hope the weather is a bit better. Only two more weeks.